Simple Orange Fennel Salad Recipe

Video Transcript

"Hi. I'm Chef Jordan and I'm going to show you how to make some simple and delicious salads. In this clip I'm going to show you how to make an easy and delicious fennel and orange salad. The tools you'll need to make this salad are a cutting board, a knife, a whisk for your dressing and a mandolin if you happen to have it. If not just a knife will do. The ingredients in this salad are fennel, oranges, baby spinach and fresh parsley. Also, to make your dressing you'll need some balsamic vinegar, olive oil, some mustard and a little salt and pepper. So I'm going to start off making the dressing. About a quarter cup of balsamic vinegar and about a teaspoon of mustard. Alright. A little pinch of salt and a couple good grounds of black pepper. You're going to really whisk all these ingredients together and I'm ready to slowly pour in about three fourths a cup of olive oil while whisking. Just make sure it's thoroughly combined. I'm going to grab a little bit of parsley. I'm just going to bunch all this parsley up together and run my knife. Be careful and use my knuckles as a guide so I don't cut off my fingers. Just add a good pinch and a half of the chopped parsley. Now I'm going to cut the oranges. So first I want to cut off both ends of the oranges. The bottom, the top. And now I want to cut around the orange just cutting off the tip leaving just the juicy center inside. Now I'm going to continue. If you look at this orange there's little white lines separating each segment. What you want to do is cut on both sides of the line and separate the slices. Just like that you get a beautiful segment. Great. I'll set my slices aside and with the rest of the orange you can really utilize it. I want to take it and just kind of squeeze the juice from it and I'm going to add it to my salad dressing. It will really compliment the orange in the salad. Now, fennel is a vegetable that a lot of people aren't familiar with, but it's huge in Italian cooking and it's just got this great Annecy black licorice kind of flavor. Just cut off all these green outer shoots and set this to the side. Now there's this core at the bottom that you want to cut off also. Now if you didn't have one of these you could just make thin slices with your knife. Be careful with your fingers because this is a very sharp blade that your fingers are moving towards. I'm just going to keep going back and forth. Just gorgeous and makes for a beautiful salad. To assemble my salad I'm going to place some of my pre-washed baby spinach into the bowl and my fennel. A great color combination right there. Now my orange slices. And add in that reserved orange juice from segmenting the oranges. I'm going to pour some dressing. Just enough to coat the leaves. You don't need to use all the dressing. You may even save some for a rainy day. Toss it to coat it. Alright. Put the rest of my orange slices on top to make it look nice and decorative. Now for our garnish I'm going to use the tops of the fennel that I chopped off, and there you have it. A delicious and nutritious salad of fennel, oranges, baby spinach, little slivered almonds and a balsamic orange vinaigrette. Enjoy."